$355,500 for Bathrooms at Veterans Field

      These bathrooms probably sounded like a good idea before the recent turmoil in the financial markets. "BE IT ORDAINED by the Village Council of the Village of Ridgewood, in the County of Bergen, New Jersey that the sum of $47,000.00 is hereby appropriated from the Capital Fund Balance to supplement ordinance 2828 in the amount of $197,000, and ordinance 3014 in the amount of $111,500 for the construction of restrooms at the Kasschau Memorial Shell." I guess the fields at Vets are used so much these days that using the bathrooms in the library and the police station are no longer options. Too bad when they were recently expanding both of these facilities they couldn't have made allowance for some extra bathrooms. If I might pontificate for a moment: these new bathrooms are just a symptom of our current economic malaise, and will be seen in quite a different light when the inevitable budget cuts occur in the village budget. People on the council don't seem to realize that layoffs are the order of the day on Wall Street and that many Ridgewood residents are going to lose their jobs. Tax receipts from Real Estate levies will invariably be less than planned. I remember the recession of 1973-74 which coincided with the first Oil price shocks. In my family we were all warned not to ask for too much as times were going to be tight for a while. There were no real cutbacks in our household expenses, but there was a renewed sense of the need to watch our pennies. Hopefully, the same spirit exists today and the cutbacks won't be too deep. Though I can't imagine how anybody 35 years ago would have thought these bathrooms were a good idea. Just my 2 cents.